Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the religious scripture of the Sikh people, is envisaged as the “Living Guru”, and the practitioner of the values inscribed in the Granth Sahib or Gurbaani (verses of the Gurus) is the Sikh. This quintessential value system (the idea of Gursikh, literally the “disciple of the master”) is fundamentally embodied in the praxis of the thought we understand today as ‘Sikh’.
Guru Nanak’s emphasis on Kirat Karo (hard work); Vand Chhako (sharing with people) and Naam Japo (meditating upon the name of the creator) further creates a value ecosystem of love, compassion, humility, contentment and truth, and these values integrate with the central idea of “oneness”, which primarily indicates the absence of the “other”. The possibility of “oneness” exists when there is no “other”, reiterates Bhagat Namdev on Anga 485 of the Granth Sahib: “Sabh Gobind Hai / Sabh Gobind Hai / Gobind Binn Nahi Koye (All is God / God is All / Without God, there is Nothing at All).”